SKIRMISHER

In the past five years, Dell seems to be getting cozy with the expensive habit of recalling laptop batteries (recalling 22,000 batteries last December and 284,000 in 2001). Last Monday’s recall, however, involved a fantastic number — 4.1 million, all made by another fantastic company, Sony Corp.

How these fantastic companies figuring in crappy fiery situations involving non-fantastic products, I simply don’t know. But what my dog and I know is that many innocent, previously satisfied notebook owners around the world found their beloved notebooks suddenly get all hot and excited — so hot that there’s actually fire, explosions, and the passionate gnashing of teeth.

“In rare cases, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, causing a risk of smoke and/or fire,” said the spokesman, Ira Williams. “It happens in rare cases, but we opted to take this broad action immediately.”

The battery packs were included in some models of Dell’s Latitude, Inspiron, XTS and precision mobile workstation notebooks. Dell planned to launch a Web site overnight that would describe the affected models. Williams said the Web site would tell consumers how to get free replacement batteries from Dell.

Dell officials declined to say how much the recall campaign would cost or what portion, if any, Sony would pay. Sony officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The larger potential cost for Dell is that such a huge recall could dampen future notebook sales.”

DELL TO RECALL 4M LAPTOP BATTERIES [CBS]

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